Page 9

Table nine. A man I haven't served before. Late forties, the kind of tan you get from a yacht, not a beach. Teeth that are too white, too straight and too many of them, like he asked a dentist for "intimidating dolphin" and the dentist delivered. He's ordered a bottle of Château Margaux that costs more than my rent and is drinking it alone, which should be my first warning. Men who drink alone at The Sterling Club are either working through something painful or looking for something they shouldn't be.

This one isn't in pain.

"Another glass, sweetheart?" he says when I come to check on him, and the word sweetheart lands on me like a hand on the back of my neck. I've heard worse. At Mama‘s, I'd heard much worse — trucker slang, construction-site catcalls and one memorable night when a drunk accountant described what he wanted to do to me using terminology that I'm pretty sure is illegal in some states. But at Mama’s, I'd had a Formica counter between us and Manny the line cook in earshot, and Manny was six-two and had opinions about men who talked to waitresses like that.

Here, this man's membership costs a quarter million dollars and my job costs everything I have.

"Of course, sir." I reach for the bottle. Keep my face professionally blank.

His hand closes around my wrist.

It’s not hard or violent, he’s not squeezing my wrist. It’s just... there. Fingers wrapping around the bone with a firmness that says I'm doing this because I can and we both know you're not going to stop me. His thumb presses against the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse, and I can feel my own heartbeat hammering against his skin.

"You're new," he says, and the words are the same ones Danny used on my first night, but in this man's mouth they sound completely different. Oily. Appraising. Like he's reading a price tag. "I'd remember you."

My brain does the math. The math women learn before they learn algebra — the silent, instant calculation of how much danger am I in right now versus how much danger will I be in if I make this worse. I need this job. I need this job more than I need to yank my arm away and tell this man to go fuck himself, which is what every nerve in my body is screaming at me to do.

"I started yesterday," I say. Try to slide my wrist free. Casually. Like I'm just adjusting my grip on the bottle. His fingers tighten. Barely. Enough.

"Gorgeous little thing like you. They should put you upstairs." His thumb traces a slow circle over my pulse point. My stomach turns. "I could arrange that, sweetheart. I know people."

I open my mouth —

And then Theo Kane materializes beside the table like six and a half feet of silent consequence.

I don't hear him coming. One second the space next to me is empty and the next it's filled with the head of security, his massive frame blocking the candlelight entirely. He doesn't touch the man. Doesn't raise his voice. He looks at the hand on my wrist, then at the man's face, and whatever is in that look makes the fingers release instantly. Like they've been burned.

"Mr. Hargrove." Theo's voice is so low and quiet it barely registers as sound. "You're needed at the front desk."

I have no idea what’s happening right now but the tension is insane.

Hargrove stands, buttons his jacket with a casualness that convinces nobody, and follows Theo toward the lobby without looking at me again. I stand there with the wine bottle in one hand and my freed wrist pressed against my stomach — not because it hurts, but because I can still feel the circle his thumb traced, and I want to scrub it off my skin.

Evie appears within thirty seconds.

"You okay?"

"Fine." My voice is thinner than I want it to be. "He just grabbed my wrist. It was nothing."

"It wasn't nothing." Her red lips compress into a hard line, and for the first time I see Evie angry — really angry, not the polished amusement she usually wears like armor. "Rule One, Anna. Staff are untouchable. That's not a suggestion. It's the foundation this whole place is built on."

"He didn't hurt me."

"Doesn't matter. He touched you without permission. That's enough." She glances toward the lobby, where Hargrove has disappeared. "He's done."

"Done as in —"

"As in done. Membership revoked. Gone."

"For grabbing my wrist?! That's a $250,000 membership, Evie."

She looks at me. That look again — the one from last night, part pity, part wonder, like I'm standing in the middle of a story I don't know the plot of yet.

"The order came from upstairs," she says quietly. "Before Theo even reached the table."

The words land cold.

Upstairs. The Black Floor. Where the monitors are. Where the private suites are. Where Mr. Sterling apparently sits right now, watching his club through cameras I can’t even see.